


an apple doesn’t fall far from the tree

by imjustherehello



Category: DC Comics, DCU (Comics)
Genre: F/M, Family Fluff, Fluff, Kingdom come universe, Multiple chapters, Time Skips, earth 22, zachary is their son instead of zatannas cousin
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-11 23:55:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 4,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29625972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imjustherehello/pseuds/imjustherehello
Summary: multiple short stories inspired by the kingdom come universe where John and Zatanna have a son.
Relationships: John Constantine/Zatanna Zatara
Comments: 11
Kudos: 19





	1. Chapter 1

Seven hours.

Seven hours of pain and pushing and holding John’s hand for comfort, _But it was all worth it._ Zatanna thought, as she looked down at the newborn baby boy cradled in her arms. With dark black hair and bright blue eyes like his father’s, the baby had the loudest cry John thinks he’s ever heard.

“So are we stickin’ with the name we planned?” John asked her then planted a kiss on her head.

“Of course, we didn’t spend two weeks deciding on one to abandon it.” Zee said with a chuckle. John looked at their son.

“Great, well..” “Zachary Francis Zatara, welcome to the world.”

“Are you sure you don’t want him to have your last name John?”

“He would have a better reputation with yours luv.”


	2. chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a flashback to before zachary was born

“Do you really have to give birth during an eclipse?” John asked looking at his very pregnant technically wife as she sat on their bed in Shadowcrest. They weren’t married legally, but they both hated using the girlfriend and boyfriend terms so they just settled on husband and wife and no one was bothered. “I mean its not even your due date, and with a time like this it doesn’t seem like a good night to have a baby!”

“My due date was two weeks ago! Besides I’m sure nothing supernatural will happen while our son is born, its just a date coincidence. A baby comes when it wants too which happens to be-.” she winces in pain. “Which happens to be now!”

“bullocks, we should’ve gone to a hospital for this.” John says as he rushes over to her. He sits on the edge of the bed and grabs her hand.

“Well its to late for that now darling. Now just please stay with me.” She says looking back at him. He can see the hint of fear in her eyes, worrying not just about delivering a baby, but on raising a child itself. But he knows how excited she is, just like him.

“I’m terrified John.”

“I know luv, I am too.”

“We are going to be parents.”

“You’ll do great. I know it.” John sees the love in her eyes, for him and their child.

She takes a deep breath “ Ok, I can do this.”


	3. chapter 3

It was 10 o’clock at night and she had just finally gotten baby Zac to sleep.   
“He’ll be four months old tomorrow” she reminded herself, it felt like yesterday she had held him for the first time. Not much had changed since then, John and her started to drift apart about two months ago after an argument about how to protect Zac and her returning too the Justice league dark team too early. Fortunately they made up after a date night at the oblivion bar while Entrigan was stuck babysitting their son. Now John was on a trip to help an old friend in London while she was back in her San Francisco apartment with a soon-to-be-four month old.   
“How did it lead to this?” she tried to remember. 

It was like a domino chain of events, they got to drunk one night which landed both of them in bed with to much love and desire for two people who were supposed to be taking a break on their relationship. They used protection like always, but Zatanna didnt notice that she pronounced “lacigam evitpecartnoc” a little bit too wrong and they next thing she knew, she was sitting next to her bathtub clutching a positive pregnancy test. 

“Holy fuck.”

“What am I going to do? How am I going to tell John this?!” she didn’t notice she was thinking aloud until he walked in.   
“Tell me what luv?”   
“Um.. you should sit down for this.”


	4. Chapter 4

Zachary was 7 months old and loved magic. At least how magic looked to him, the glowing lights of a sigil or the bright coloured magic that would come off one of his parents hands when they said a spell. He would always laugh or giggle when he saw it, and his parents noticed how it fascinated him. Zatanna would rest baby Zac on her legs and make colourful illusions appear over them just to hear his laugh.   
“roloc niosulli” became a common spell in their household, Zee using it when Zac wouldn’t sleep or if he was fussy. 

Due to his fathers use of magic, Zachary also liked fire. A fact that worried both his parents when he was a toddler. To be fair, most people don’t have a son that likes to create little fires on his hands since he saw his father do it once to banish a demon. They started to teach him how to control the small amount of magic he already had, knowing that he would gain more as he got older. 

And holy shit, he did. 

Zatanna never really put into consideration how powerful a person with all the powers of a homo magi and a laughing magician might have.


	5. Chapter 5

Zachary remembers travelling a lot as kid, whether it was his mom’s apartment in san francisco, his father’s place in london, the shadowcrest mansion, or even the house of secrets and house of mystery some days. From as early as he can remember, he's been going through magic portals since he was a baby, after all he wasn’t supposed to be born in shadowcrest since a portal was the only way out of it.

“Are you sure this is safe for him? I mean he’s so little what if the portal hurts him?” Zatanna asked while feeding their newborn. 

“He’ll be fine. Last I checked luv, transport portals don’t affect babies that have only been alive for a couple of hours.” 

“You better be right John.” She swaddled Zac in a tiny blanket and walked into the yellow-golden portal after John.


	6. Chapter 6

She was 7 months pregnant and the damn baby would not stop kicking. Zatanna did put into consideration how being pregnant would affect her hero life as Zatanna, the powerful sorceress that was a former justice league member and now co-lead the justice league dark team along with her friend Diana, she just didn’t realize how much it would affect her career as a performer.

  
“Do you think I might have to go on maternity leave at some point?” She asked john while lying next to him in bed. “I mean I will once the baby is born, but this is getting hard.” She had a point, traveling from city to city and performing for an hour and a half 4 times a week was difficult when you constantly felt nauseous and had a kicking baby who was still growing.

“I just feel like I’m abandoning so much, especially the team.”

“You aren’t abandoning anything Zee, you’re just doing what you have to do. And though it will be harder, the others can still prevent magic disasters for awhile.” John said and looked at her.

She sighed and met his gaze. “Thank you. Just make sure none of them get themselves killed for me please.”

“I will.” John replied, as he took her into his arms and kissed her forehead. She fell asleep to the sound of their steady heartbeats.


	7. Chapter 7

Zachary didn’t say his first true spell until he was 3. Before then all he could do was “adad” or “amum” which would just summon John or Zatanna out of nowhere. It was after a nightmare that had left Zac too scared to fall back asleep, so he remembered everything that he had learned from his mom about saying spells and what his dad taught him about dealing with the nightmares. 

“Og yawa seramthgin” he quietly whispered to himself and a teddy bear on his bed.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this is definitely less fluff but i wanted to write in a teenage Zac.

“Creepy flashing lights in the basement? That’s some horror movie shit right there.” But Zachary continued to walk down the dark creaky steps anyways. He had just turned 17, and a classmate of his asked if he knew anything about getting rid of supernatural beings. “Like hell I do, I learned when I was a kid.” He told himself in his head that morning in class. 

“Um yeah I know some things about ghost and entities, why did something happen?” Zac looked at the girl, he remembered her name was Abby or was it Addie? Didn’t matter, he didn’t care. 

“Last night I saw something like walking around in my basement, but when I tried to get closer it screeched and just vanished.” He could tell she wasn’t lying by her body language, reading people was a trick he learned from his godmother, Dinah Lance. “ I was wondering if you could help me out with it? You can come over on Saturday. Heres my address.” She handed him a piece of notebook paper with a house address scribbled in pen on it. 

“Sure I’ll check it out.” 

He was now really starting to regret that sentence. “At least I came prepared.” He thought, the night before he looked over some of his dads old notes and spell books that looked ancient. Even though this was his first solo “mission” he had witnessed countless ones before. As he reached the bottom of the stair case the lights fully went out and the air automatically felt colder around him. 

“erif” He whispered under his breath and a small flame ignited in his left hand. He heard something stir a couple feet in front of him. Cautiously he stepped forward just enough to see a white barren back that was mostly bones and skin.  
“Ah hell.” he whispered. Just then the creature whipped its head around to see the boy right in-front of it. Zac automatically recognized what it was, with its pale white skin, long tangled hair, black empty eyes, and a gaping unhinged jaw leaving its mouth right open. 

A fuckin’ Banshee. 

Zachary automatically jumped back and yelled “ecnelis!” before it had the chance to scream at him. He didn’t know much about Banshees’ except that they had a scream that could make him go deaf. 

Standing over him now, the Banshee was at least 6 feet tall and was trying to scream. “Good luck breaking that spell bitch!” Zac thought. One last spell, thats all he had to do.  
“Neuter ot lleh dna od ton emoc kcab!” He yelled the spell at the creature. 

His voiced cracked on the last two words but that wasn’t his biggest concern at the time. He ran back up the stairs as a purple circle surrounded the Banshee and opened a portal straight to hell where the creature fell into.  
Exhausted, he walked to the kitchen where the girl was waiting for him. 

“Fixed your little problem for ya.” 

“Thanks a ton, would you like to stay for dinner?” the girl winked at him. 

Oh hell no. He might be dumb but even he knew where this was headed. 

“Sorry but I’ve gotta go. See ya next week.” He hadn’t noticed, but his slight British accent kicked in on the last sentence. 

As he walked back to his mom’s apartment where he had been staying for a couple months he thought to himself. 

“ I wonder if dad would have been proud of me for that.” 

“Yeah he would’ve.” Zac whispered with a smile.


	9. Chapter 9

When Zachary was five he tagged along with his dad one day to find a creature called “Swamp thing” he didn’t remember much, just that his dad made him wear an old jacket that was way to big for him because it was winter in england. That was also the day he met a weird looking man who could float, apparently his name was Boston Brand. He didn’t like Boston that much, since all he did was follow them and tease Zac. They eventually found the man called Swamp thing and Zac almost fainted out of fear when he saw his full height. 

“He was huge mom!” he told Zee that night as she was putting him to bed. “I didn’t know dad knew so many weird creatures!” he said with excitement in his voice. 

His mother smiled, “Most of your father’s friends aren’t human honey.” “Now go to bed, its late.” She kissed his forehead and he fell asleep. 

“I’m surprised he enjoyed that, I figured the kid would hate it.” John told Zee later that night. 

“He just likes doing stuff with you, especially if it involves learning more magic.” 

“Oi, he’d be terrified of Batman.” 

She laughed “ You might be right on that one.”


	10. Chapter 10

Zachary had only been in the House of mystery for an hour but it was starting to feel like eternity. A simple hide and go seek game between a seven year old and his mother turned complicated when Klarion the witch boy showed up and the house automatically changed its layout, causing Zac to get lost. 

Zachary was about to take another left turn until he stopped in his tracks. “Wait haven’t I gone through this hallway already?” he thought, getting more and more anxious. Maybe he remembered wrong and it was a different hallway? Maybe the House just created it seconds ago? The possibilities where endless. “I just want to find mom and dad at this point. This game isn’t fun anymore.” Zac said as he looked at the rooms down the hall. There were six completely identical bedrooms, all of them resembling his back home. The house was playing a trick on him, trying to prevent someone from finding him. 

Meanwhile on the other side of the changing mystery, John and Zatanna were both looking for their son.  
“Why did the two of you think playing a game here would go well?” John said looking behind him at Zee. 

“I didn’t think the house would drastically change itself! It hardly ever does this!” She snapped back at him. She did feel horrible about the situation, knowing that Zac was somewhere scared and helpless. 

“Wait. Do you think someone else told the house to change? It could've been caused by a spell.” 

“Like if someone wanted to get Zachary separated from us?” she asked, fear rising. 

They shared a concerned look. “Oh fuck.” 

More time kept passing and Zac made no progress of finding his parents. “I can’t do this anymore.” He told himself. Then, an idea popped in his head like a tiny magic lightbulb.  
“I can summon them with one sentence.” he thought.

“ But they said to only use that for emergency purposes.” 

“This is an emergency idiot!” his two braincells were arguing at this point. 

“Ok Ok you can do this Zac, just summon someone.” He slumped down against the wall and sat with his legs crossed on the floor. He knew he called them mom and dad now, but dada and mama backwords always worked so he still used that. 

“Adad raeppa” He said and paused. His magic tended to take a couple seconds to take affect so he tried again. “Amam raeppa.” 

Five seconds passed. Then he heard a thud and a grunt behind him and turned around to see his parents on the ground, a portal closing above them. 

“What the bloody hell was that.” His dad said, having not seen Zac in front of them yet. 

Zatanna looked up to see her son standing there looking shocked. “Zachary!” she said as she stood up and hugged him. 

“Zac... you summoned us?” 

“I know you said not to but I thought it counted as an emergency and I-“ Zatanna stopped him there. 

“No honey, you did great.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sorry it took so long to update! i had a short writers block. <3

He was in awe of her.   
Standing behind a stage curtain, Zac was watching his mom do another one of her amazing performances. This night they were in New York, the last stop on her tour.

“Ladies Gentlemen and others, Welcome the majestic Zantanna!” 

Oh no. Even Zac knew that wasn’t how her name was pronounced, and he knew how much it annoyed her.   
She appeared in a blue swarm of magic, gracefully bowing in her stage outfit. 

“Thank you! Its wonderful to be here tonight.” she said then started to perform the show, one amazing trick after another. All of them he knew. She loved showing him her new tricks and performance ideas when she thought of them. 

Since Zachary could talk, Zee would always tell him about stage performing and how his grandfather did it and she now did it. He would go with her to the shows, running around in the empty theatres before people showed up, and stay with her assistant Arnie or his father, depending on who was there. His favorite one was when she would call an audience member up to the stage and perform some crazy magic illusion on them, Zac thought the persons confusion to what happened to them was hilarious. 

Zatanna’s favorite time though was sneaking glances at her son during performances. He was her biggest fan, just as she was to her own father. Seeing Zachary’s smile and giggle at the shocked audience reminded her of herself as a child. 

She remembered the first time Zachary saw one her shows. It was an early night at a new bar in San Francisco, and since John was staying with her and the baby for the past year, he was there too. In between her different tricks and spells, she would sneak glances at one of the tables in the audience, to see her husband trying to hold a very stubborn way-past-his-bedtime infant. Zachary had been fussy that whole day, they were just worried that he might start crying during the show. Fortunately John managed to prevent that from happening by tracing a calmness sigil on the baby's tiny forehead. (He always felt bad for using his magic on their son, but they were pretty desperate.) 

“noisulli!” she shouted and a swarm of bright colors appeared in the air, above the audience and the stage. Automatically, the bar was filled with gasps and surprised faces. Zatanna turned her attention from the audience to the table, where Zachary was looking up at the illusion with his bright eyes and laughing. He was the cutest damn thing she’d ever seen. She looked at John, who then met her gaze and grinned, holding up Zac so he could see the magic better. Although he didn’t say it much, he also loved seeing Zee preform, because she amazed him every time. She gave a short wink, then turned back to the audience. 

“So who’s ready for my next act?” 

The show was finally over and the bar was near its closing time as she stepped out a door behind the stage. She looked around for them, standing at the sidewalk. 

“Over here luv.” she heard John say from a couple feet behind her. Zee turned to see him standing in front of the alley next to the bar, holding a happy but very tired Zachary. 

“Mama!” Zachary squealed, one hand reaching out at her.

She smiled and walked up to them. “So, what’d you think of the performance?” 

“You did great. Someone here obviously loved it” John tilted his head toward Zachary. Zatanna took the baby from John’s arms and held him close to her, Zachary automatically resting his head on her shoulder. 

“Gosh, his reaction was adorable” she said as she planted a kiss on his little head.

“It was.” John shrugged. “Maybe he can be your magic assistant when he gets older.” 

“OUR magic assistant, he’s your baby too John.” 

“I know luv. I know.” John said as he wrapped his arm around Zatanna’s waist. 

“ekat su emoh” She whispered, not wanting to wake up the now peacefully asleep baby Zachary.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Did I mention that Zachary’s godmother (like 3rd parent) is literally Wonder Woman?

Hey Diana can we talk tonight?” Diana’s phone dinged. It was a message from Zatanna.

“Sure I’ll meet with you at my place after this league meeting.” She replied, wondering what she needed to see her about. Maybe it had something to do with the justice league dark team? No it would’ve sounded more urgent if it was that. 

Diana walked up to her apartment door to see Zatanna standing there, wearing a black trench coat that was hiding most of her figure. She was fidgeting with her fishnet gloves, and looked nervous. 

“Zatanna!” Diana said as she walked up to her and automatically went for a hug. Zee hugged back, but Diana could tell she was tense. “Somethings wrong.” Diana thought to herself. 

“Here, come inside its cold.” Diana unlocked the door and dragged her friend inside. 

“Thanks for meeting with me on a short notice.” Zatanna told her, sitting down on Diana’s sofa. 

“Its fine. I haven’t seen you in awhile anyways.” Zatanna nodded in agreement. 

“Do you want something to drink? I still have that bottle of wine.” Diana asked. 

“Oh no thank you, but I have to pass.” 

“Ok something is definitely wrong.” Diana thought, Zee hardly ever refused a drink. 

“Ok.. So what did you want to tell me about?” Diana urged to get answers from her friend. 

Zatanna gulped. “Um well.. I came her to ask if you would take my place as leader of the team for a while. Just a couple of months.” 

“Why? is something wrong?” Diana’s concern grew. 

“No! Nothings wrong really its just that John and I won’t be able to be there for a while.” 

“John too? Zatanna what is going on?” Diana sat down on a chair in-front of Zatanna. 

“Well its just that... ah screw it. I’m pregnant Diana.” Zatanna blurted out. 

They stared at each other in silence for a couple seconds.

“You’re what?!” Diana yelled then regretted it immediately. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have yelled like that its just... you’re actually pregnant?” 

“Yup.” Zatanna nodded, looking up at Diana. 

“Wait. Does that mean-“

“Yes Diana. Its Johns.” 

“Holy mother of gods. How long have you known?” Diana had so many questions now. 

“About four months, almost five.” Zatanna said, now taking off the trench coat so Diana could see the obvious baby bump. 

“Oh my gods Zee, well congratulations!” Diana felt a sudden happiness for her friend. Zatanna was literally going to be a mother. 

“Thanks. Now about taking my place on the team-“

“I’ll do it. Absolutely.” 

Zatanna exhaled, looking like a huge pressure had just been lifted off of her. “Thank you so much, D. I needed assurance that it would be okay.” 

“Its fine Zee. You shouldn’t have to worry about hero work when you already have enough to deal with right now.” 

“So who’s going to be the godparent to the child?” Diana was excited for Zee. 

“Well we were hoping you or Bruce, but thought you would be better since you understand magic better than B does.”   
Zatanna was right, this child would have the magic abilities of a laughing magician and a homo magi, so someone with at least some magic ability would be best. 

“Of course. Wow thats going to be one interesting child- wait what was John’s reaction?” Diana never saw him as the father type. 

“He was just as nervous as me, but still happy when I told him.” Zatanna smiled softly. 

“Good. I would’ve kicked his ass if he wasn’t”. She thought.

Diana smiled back. “You’ll be a great mom Zee. I’m happy for the two of you.” 

Soon they said their goodbyes and as Zatanna walked away from the apartment, Diana thought to herself with a grin. 

“Another mystic that the world will have to deal with.”


	13. Chapter 13

“Mom, can I get a cat?” Zachary says, as he stares into the pet store window they walk by. 

“Now isn’t a really good time to get a pet Zac, maybe another time.” Zatanna glances at him. Zachary knows shes right, with Circe starting to cause problems on the magic community, the JLD has been extremely busy trying to prevent another apocalypse. This was the first time in two weeks that his parents weren’t busy working. Instead, Zachary had tagged along with them to contact Timothy Hunter, or Tim as John called him. A pet was the only thing on Zachary’s mind though. 

A couple hours later, Zachary was sitting in the parlour of shadowcrest while his parents were off going to the house of secrets. Zatanna usually wouldn’t leave a seven year old mystic home alone, but the house of secrets wasn’t any safer at the time. So Zachary was sitting upside down on a chair, thinking about pet options. 

“Ok so we definitely can’t get a dog since I change homes regularly, so thats not an option.” Zachary spoke to himself, something he had a habit of doing to cope with the loneliness. 

“Oh! What about a cat? They are less work and Klarion said cats are the best familiars!” He thought about that more.   
“Wait no, that probably wouldn’t work well either.”   
Zachary sighed, his mom was probably right, the world was to chaotic right now to get another responsibility. It was lonely though, especially for a kid with no friends. All he really had were his mom and dad, but they were so busy dealing with the threat that he barely heard from them. 

“Why can’t we just go back to normal? To calm or at least somewhat calm?” He wondered. 

Later, Zachary walked into the study, knowing his dad would be there looking over another magic book about who knows what. 

“Hey dad?” Zachary peeked his head into the room where he saw that his guess was correct. “Can I get a pet? Y’know like a cat or something?” 

John looked up at his son. “Depends, What’da mum say?”   
Darn it. John already knew he was the second person Zachary would go to for this question. 

“Well she said not right now but-“ John stopped him. 

“Sorry kid, but no.” 

“But it gets so lonely here! And since you and mom are usually gone I’m just alone.” Zachary argued. 

“I’m sorry Zac really, but you shouldn’t adopt a random animal right now, theres enough going on in this family already.” Zachary noticed the tired look in his father’s eyes, and felt a tang of guilt after. 

“Fine. Well what about a younger sibling? I can settle on a little brother instead of a dog.” Zachary said, smiling. 

John nearly choked on air after that one.

“That’s um something you should ask your mother about, not me.” 

Zachary was sitting at his desk when a light bulb idea went off on his head. “What if I made one?” He thought. “I can just summon a small pet.” 

“ etaerc a gohegdeh!” 

Five minutes later Zachary was staring in awe at the little hedgehog sitting on his desk. 

Zachary carefully ran down the stairs, holding the hedgehog behind his back. He saw his parents discussing something or flirting? He didn’t care at that point.   
Zac ran up to the table looked at them and smiled. “Hi” he said mischievously. 

“Hey- wait, Zac what did you do?” Zatanna looked at him, already knowing he just did something. 

Zachary took the hedgehog from behind him and placed it on the table in-front of his parents, to their surprise.   
“I created it! Using magic of course.” 

John was the next one to speak. “Kid, you can’t keep that.” 

“Too late, he’s mine and I’ve already named him Spiky.” 

John and Zatanna looked at each other, and if glances could talk theirs would just say “Tired parents TM”. 

“Fine, just remember to take care of it Zac.”

Zachary is finally asleep with spiky in his room, while Zatanna was downstairs with John. 

“Y’know after I said no to a pet he asked for a little brother.” John said, sitting across from her on the sofa.  
“I didn’t realize how lonely he gets here, with us being gone so much and all the chaos going in the magic world right now.” 

Zatanna sighed. “We knew this was going to happen eventually though, its why I was worried when we first found out we would be parents. I mean with what we’ve been doing for years, its not exactly safe for a little kid.”

John holds her hand and looks at her. “I know love, but we’re trying our best and thats what matters.” Then he smirks. “And hey, maybe once things finally settle down we could give Zac a sibling.” 

Zatanna laughs.   
“In your dreams John.”

**Author's Note:**

> please like or comment so i can keep making more! hope you enjoyed <3
> 
> follow me on tumblr for more updates! : @dcnextgens


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